New Year's Day Sighting

Whenever I'm home, I get to walk the dog with Dad.  The route is usually very minor variations on the same loop around a nearby lake, and we've been walking it, with or without a dog, since I was a kid (with one interruption of a few years when the ownership changed and they didn't want us down there).  When the dog is very lucky, he gets two and occasionally three trips in a single day.  Dad is good about getting him down there twice a day whenever he has the time; when I visit, I try to do the same on the days Dad works and doesn't have the time for a lap around the lake.

A few years ago, before I moved to Oregon, Dad and I heard a low chittering in the trees in one area and looked up to find them dark with bodies.  The leaves had already fallen, so not seeing the silhouettes of limbs was in itself a little odd, but as we got closer we discovered the cause: hundreds and hundreds of cormorants were roosting as one enormous flock.  It was the only night we ever saw them, and we both regretted not taking a camera on a walk that was so familiar as to be unremarkable on the night that something remarkable happened.

For a couple years, a group of seven or eight swans wintered there.  We have also seen beavers, muskrats, wood ducks (they roost in trees, which is makes it--forgive me--an odd duck), and a tiny frog whose size belied the volume of its deafening song.  Herons are fairly common, but sometimes we get to hear them talking in a croaking call that serves as a reminder that their ancestors were dinosaurs.  It is an alien, primal sound, entirely unexpected from such a slender, graceful avian.

I like that a place we know so well can still provide these surprises for us, and on New Year's Day we got another: for the first time ever, we saw a bald eagle at the lake.  We stared at him long enough for him to get annoyed and fly away, but we saw him again towards the end of the walk, and we had a better view there.  The dog had no idea what had us so transfixed, and was even more confused to learn that we hadn't stopped in our tracks to scratch him behind the ears.

Naturally, we didn't have a camera that time, either, and when I raced back from the house after retrieving mine, I saw him drop out of the tree and fly west.  I looked for him every day after that, and never saw him again, but I still hope he returns with a mate to nest--Dad always has reports of the goose nests, but a nesting eagle in our backyard trumps any waterfowl.

The Alley in the Basement

I have often heard that it's good to be connected, for any variety of obvious reasons.  I've heard it--not being connected myself, I have no firsthand experience.  But I have the next best thing: I know people who are connected, and that brings us to this weekend's adventure.  I went bowling at the White House!

The number of signs leading the way through the building might make you think you are going to a much bigger space.

The Truman Bowling Alley was initially a gift to the president, installed in the White House basement.  Turns out Truman preferred poker to bowling, but he allowed White House staff to set up their own league.  Eventually, the lanes were moved into the basement of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, down this very industrial and slightly creepy hallway.

No, I did not bother looking in any of the lockers.  Wouldn't this place make a great movie set?

There are only two lanes, which was a real drag when #1 broke down, but we called the GSA and someone showed up right away to fix it.  The breakdown turned out to be a good thing for me, because the GSA lady was nice enough to let me into the mechanical room at the end of the lane to see the pin setting machine.  I was so excited, I forgot to take any pictures.  What an idiot!

The 70's-looking furniture was in very good shape.  I suspect it was made new, in Bowling Alley Chic style.

Hopefully, there aren't too many people in the group that need the same size shoes.

There are several pictures of past presidents bowling, including one of Truman bowling with wheelchair-bound veterans.  I liked the pictures of these ladies bowling.  I suspect they are first ladies, but I never met any of them, so I can't be sure.

The building in the picture is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

I had one goal: bowl a strike in the Truman Bowling Alley.  I had a series of spares, and never managed better than that.

I think this was my problem.  Certainly not my total lack of coordination.

This stairway is one of a pair which leads up from the hallway above the Truman Alley.

The stained glass at the top is Tiffany.

I can not explain this tiny door, but I can tell you that it was not the only one we saw.  Most of the doors were normal size.

The EEOB was once home to the offices of the Navy and War Departments.  The doorknobs designate who occupied which rooms.

Domestic Archaeology

After Christmas, I stayed at Dad's for a couple weeks with the intention of helping him and my brother with some home improvement projects.  We ended up spending almost all of that time working at my brother's place, but both of his stairways are now safer, one is substantially more gussied up, and the other is on its way to becoming a closet (it was a very steep stairway).  I'm disappointed we couldn't get more done for Dad, but I'm very pleased with the progress we made at my brother's house.  I also had a lot of fun playing with my nephew and trying to teach him where his shoulders are, but I might write something about that later.

Today my brother had other plans, so I had the day off, and decided to see how much clutter I could eliminate from Dad's place.  Going through one room yielded a small armload to discard, a larger armload to donate, and a box of T-shirts from college I may one day have converted into a quilt.  That won't save me any space, but at least I'll get a quilt out of it.

After lunch, I went downstairs, to the room that was mine a long, long time ago.  At the time, I was happy to finally have my own room, even if it was in the basement, and I occasionally woke up to the sound of mice in my trashcan.  Letting the cat sleep in my room helped a little.  When I went to college, that room inexplicably began to fill with things that were definitely not mine, yet somehow became my problem since "they're in your room."  The bed became buried under a pile of debris; some of it was mine, some of it is a mystery.  Over the years, being in the basement has ruined a lot of my things.  Some of them were once treasured possessions.  Mom once bought me a hand-cut stamp in the shape of a gecko; moisture and mold have since destroyed it.  Mice have chewed holes in boxes, clothing, and a pillow.  Damp ate a poster, and several books.  I look around that room at items which once defined my life, and just wonder what can be salvaged.

I filled three trash bags before I gave up for the day, and I've barely started moving through the room.  I should have done this every week I was home, slowly moving bags out to the roadside on garbage days.  My progress might have been more apparent.

I found my very first sleeping bag, an old school backpack, a polo shirt from a job I had in high school.  A letter from a girl I've forgotten, and a postcard from a girl who's probably forgotten me.  All of it went in the trash.

I was elated to find my set of double-twelve dominoes (no joke--I've been looking for those everywhere for ages), and I also turned up two bandannas I've been trying to locate.  Under a bulletin board, somehow untouched by the ravages of basement living, I found the only Beanie Baby I ever owned (purchased by Mom as part of a fast-food deal, if I remember correctly), and later realized that it shares a nickname with The Girl, which is a little weird.  I found a letter from one of my aunts, dated just after Mom died and I went back to college, commending me for my actions, and wishing me luck in my return to school.  I packed all of it in my bags, and I can only hope that airport security won't consider the box of dominoes a weapon.

Everyone keeps asking if I'll be back before my hike.  I honestly don't know, but if I do, I'll go back to the basement, if only for a little bit, to make what progress I can, and see what other artifacts of my early life I might find.

The Hole

"Hey, man, whyntchoo come over here this weekend?"  Jimmy's voice weren't never somethin' you'd hear comin' outta one of them opry singers, but it only got worse when he'd been drinking, and I could tell by the way some of his words were crawlin' on top of one another in their hurry to get out of his mouth that it was already a four-beer kinda night.

"Cause I got all manner of things I gotta get done with over here," I told him, and I made sure I said it loud enough that the missus'd hear it, too, on account of she's the only one who's sure that all those manner of things had to get done now, instead of in a month or two, when I'm good and ready, probably.  I heard her sayin' something in the kitchen that sounded a little like "You damn right, you do," but I didn't really catch it, because by then I was whispering back to the phone, because if Jimmy had some way to get me out of the house anytime soon, I was damn sure gonna take that chance.  "Why, what's goin' on?  You need help pulling out your ol' truck's engine again?  'Cause I can go down to Hartnell's tomorrow and borrow his winch, you just say the word!"

"No, man, no, I ain't working on the truck this weekend."  I heard him take three or four swallows of his beer, and the sound of it made me think that was a pretty good idea, but the phone cord wasn't gonna get me to the kitchen, and the missus wasn't gonna get a beer out to me, so that was shot.  "I got something to show you."

"Well, what is it, Jimmy?"   I was still whispering, because she was making all kinds of noise out there, and I figured she wouldn't hear none of what I had to say unless I wanted her to hear it.  "I'd sure as hell like to get over there and have a beer or two with you, but unless I got a real good reason, there ain't no way I can do it without patching the porch roof, clearing the drain in the kitchen sink, and cutting down that old elm tree first!"

"I got summinta show you," he said, in what I'm sure he thought was a conspiratorial whisper, if he knew what a conspiratorial whisper was, "that you ain't gonna believe.  Ain't nobody gonna believe this shit."

Now, you need to know that Jimmy getting drunk is about as rare as skeeters in a swamp, but maybe you already guessed that by now, and that's ok, too.  And maybe you also guessed that drunks saying "you ain't gonna believe this shit," or "hey, watch this," or even "whatchoo mean I pissed myself?" also isn't that rare, or p'raps you just know it from experience.  What that word-a-day calendar at work would call empirical.  But either way, it still don't matter none, because there's Jimmy talkin' big, and then there's Jimmy well and truly impressed by something, and this was the second one, and I know, because I known Jimmy since we was both in diapers.  Not much gets Jimmy that excited, even more excited than when the July issue of Hot Rods comes out, with all the pictures of them pretty ladies with silly shoes layin' on the cars, the one time of year he calls it Hot Bods instead, and gets to gigglin', but I could tell he was plenty wound up about whatever it was this time, so what else could I do?  I said real loud, so the missus'd hear it again, "Well, shit, Jimmy, of course she'd let me come help you with your truck. Hell, without it you can't get to work, and then how you gonna git you any food?"  I heard her say something that sounded like "You mean beer, you lazy turd," but I didn't care none, because I knew I was clear to see whatever had Jimmy all excited.

Since it was Friday night when he called, I figured by "this weekend," he meant "tomorrow morning," so as soon as I'd had some breakfast and put the dog on his line, I stuck my toolbox in the bed of the truck, mainly for appearance's sake, in case the missus was watchin', and I drove over to Jimmy's place.  His daddy had owned the biggest piece of land in three counties, and it was actually spread across those three counties, so the taxes on it was a mess and a half, I tell you truly, but back in '78 or '79 he sold a big old chunk of it to the mining company, and what he had left, and gave to Jimmy in his will, was still the biggest damn piece of continuous property in those three counties.  Jimmy and me spent just about all the time we could wandering around up in there, but to tell you the God's honest, once we found that prime fishing spot near the eastern edge, we just about stopped our wandering altogether and started building a little camp out there.  Naturally, I figured whatever he had to show me was up that way, and I was glad I always kept a pole in the truck, because I figured we could get a little fishing in after he showed me whatever it was he was wanting to show me, but when I got to Jimmy's, he was already out on the porch, ready to go, and he didn't have no fishing gear with him.  "Where's your pole, Jimmy?" I asked him, and he just shakes his head and waves at me, like he couldn't decide which gesture fit the occasion best, and he comes running around to my truck and jumps in the other door before I could even get my door open.

"Forget fishing, man, you gotta see this thing I found," he says, like he's all outta breath, and that's when I started wondering if he'd been asleep at all that night, or even the night before, because that was just about as scared as I'd ever seen him be.

He started telling me where to go, and we drove most of the way there, and eventually I realized that Jimmy'd kept on explorin' his land even after I stopped going with him, and just a little after I put that together, I realized that I didn't recognize anything no more, and that's how I knew just how very far away we were from anything we'd seen up there when we was boys.  The driving was pretty slow, on account of it weren't really roads we was driving on, and there was lots of rocks, and downed trees, and big ol' holes and whatnot, and we'd been going maybe half an hour when Jimmy says, "stop right here," and jumps out his door while we was still rolling.

It took me a moment or two longer to get my truck situated so I was pretty sure it wouldn't go nowhere while we was gone, on account of the parking brake isn't really what it once was, and probably isn't what it should be no more, but that's ok, because I keep a couple big pieces of cinder block in the back to chuck under the rear wheel and keep it from going anywhere.  By the time I had them in place, Jimmy was already off through the trees along something that was really only a trail in the sense that he'd been there once or maybe twice before, and he stopped just long enough to turn and look at me and say, "come on, man, you ain't gonna believe this!"  I was just about ready to to lob one of those cinder block chunks over near him and tell him to settle his ass down when I remembered how scared he'd looked while we was driving, and thought better of it.

After maybe twenty minutes of walking through the woods with Jimmy muttering ahead of me and not answering a single damn question, far as I could hear, I started seeing some weird things.  It was real subtle at first, and I wasn't rightly sure of any of it until we was walking back out again a little later, and paying more attention, but it started with all the grass laying down, and pointing in the same direction, and it was the same direction we was walking.  Then I noticed there weren't any dead leaves on the ground here, and it was the time of year when they was starting to fall, too, and you could plainly tell they were already coming off the trees here, but damned if I could tell where they'd got to.

It got real obvious when we got to the clearing, and I saw how all the trees that had fallen to make that clearing were all laying down so's they was pointing toward the middle of it, and the clear spot they left made a damn near perfect circle.  I was gaping about at all of that when I walked plumb into Jimmy's back, on account of he'd stopped all of a sudden, and I hadn't even noticed, since I was still looking at the trees.  "There was more of 'em last week," he said, and I was about to ask more of what when he says, "The trees that fell down keep moving in," and this time I didn't bother waiting before I spoke up.

"Moving in where??"

Jimmy pointed to the middle of the clearing and says, "In there."

"What, to the middle?"

"Yup," he says, and I noticed some scraped-up spots in the grass behind a few of the trees, which also seemed a mite odd.

"Then where the hell are they now, if there was more of them before, and now there ain't?" I asked him.

"I got no earthly idea," he says, and I got a little idea of what was scarin' him so bad.

"Watch this," he says, and for the first time I realized he's been holding a beer bottle the whole time, and of course it's empty, because what kind of friend would invite you over and only bring one beer with him?  Then he takes the bottle by the neck, and without even much wind up, he tosses it into the air, and I swear to you, the longer that sucker was in the air, the faster it went, and I ain't never seen such a thing before in my life.  He barely tossed it at all, and Jimmy can really throw when he wants, but this was real gentle-like, and that bottle shot through the air like it had engines on it, straight to the middle of the clearing, then shot down and just plumb disappeared.

We both just stood there for a minute or two, starin' at where the bottle shoulda been but weren't, and finally I said, "Let me try that."

And of course Jimmy says, "That was my last bottle."

"Whatchoo mean, your last bottle??  Where'd the rest of them go?"  And he sorta looks at me the same way the dog does when he knows you just found he done pissed somewhere he shouldn't've, and points to the middle of the clearing and shrugs.

"Man, I don't know where they went.  That's what I'm trying to tell you."

"Well, let's go git 'em," I said, and he grabs my arm and pushes back away from the middle like that was the worst idea he'd ever heard.

"Listen!  Listen!" he says, and the way he said was really more like a hiss, like maybe he was afraid of who else was gonna hear us listening way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, but I listened all the same, and I really couldn't tell you that I heard very much, because I didn't.

"Listen to what, Jimmy?  There ain't nothin out here."

"Yeah," he says, "I know!  But there should be!"  He grabbed both my arms real tight and says, "You seen the geese flyin over the last coupla weeks?"  I nodded, 'cause I had.  "You see 'em here?" I looked up and didn't see much of anything, which was weird, because it was pretty cloudy over at my place, and I don't live too far from Jimmy, but there was nothing at all in the air above that clearing but clear blue sky.

"Nope," I said, and by then I had to admit it was rather peculiar.  "What did you mean about those trees?"

"They moved, man.  First time I was out here and saw 'em, there was a big old oak trunk laying over there," and without turning to look at it, he pointed almost at the dead center of that clearing.  "About a week later, I got out here again, and it had moved, and two weeks after that was yesterday, and it was just plain gone by then, and that's when I went back and called you."

"Moved how?"

"I don't know how!!  Same as them bottles, I guess!"

"Hang on, Jimmy, I want to try something."  I looked around us for a little bit until I finally found a stick small enough for me to break off a bigger limb, but big enough that it hadn't disappeared like all the leaves I hadn't seen, and I lobbed it up in the air, and damn if it didn't disappear just like Jimmy's bottles.  Then I got to thinking about it, and said, "ok, now let's try something else," and we went back to the truck and got my fishing pole and the little tackle box I keep in there.  That one isn't as big as the one I take when I know I'm going fishing, but it has a couple of my favorite lures, on account of it's the box that's always in my truck, so I know I've always got the good stuff if the mood to drop a line strikes when I don't have my full kit available.

We went back to where Jimmy had thrown his bottle, and I had him hold the pole while I dug around in the tackle box for something I didn't much mind losing.  I was just about to stick an old lead weight on the line when I saw Jimmy staring at it, and I realized the line wasn't hanging down from the pole the way you though it ought to, but was hanging at a bit of an angle, pointing towards that funny spot where things disappeared.  I looked up at Jimmy, and he looked back at me, and then we both looked out at that spot, and then we both looked anywhere else.  He got real interested in the trees between us and the truck, and I got real busy with that lead sinker.  When I got it all set, with a bright red bobber for good measure, I gave it a real gentle cast, because by then I didn't figure it'd take too much, and I was right.  That sinker shot straight towards that funny little spot where all the tree trunks and sticks and grass was pointing, and was like to disappear, but Jimmy and I've been fishing almost as long as we've known each other, and as I've already told you, that's been a good while, so I was able to stop the line spinning out before the sinker disappeared altogether.

"Ho Lee Shit," says Jimmy, and I had to agree, because we was too far away to see the sinker for sure, but that bright red bobber looked like it was hovering a few inches off the ground a good forty yards away from us, not quite to where the bottles went, and my pole was already bending a little bit.  "Can you reel it in?" he asked, and under normal circumstances, I woulda yelled at him, because of course I'd be able to reel it in, but today was not turning out to be any manner of normal, so I just stayed quiet and started turning the handle, and it was a good deal harder than I'd expected it to be.  Four, maybe five years ago, Jimmy and me were fishing out on Coons Cap Lake, and hooked a bass that must have been some kind of monster, because we was fighting it enough to make the whole damn boat rock, and eventually lost it when he snapped our 40-pound line.  I only had a little piece of lead and a plastic bobber on the line that day in the clearing, and had to work damn near as much.  I thought I'd get it, too, but I forgot that sometimes that particular reel can be a little tricky, and when I went to rest without holding the reel handle, it spun back out on me, and by the time I caught it again, it was past that first cast, and when I tried to reel it back in, the line gave up and that little red bobber disappeared just slick as shit through a goose.  Jimmy looked after it for a long time, and then he said, "We need something faster," and started back towards the truck.

I grabbed up all my stuff, and he explained on the way, and by that afternoon we were back and better prepared, and we had Hartnell's winch, too, and you can bet your life we didn't tell Hartnell why we wanted it, neither.  We also had Frank's boy's paintball gun and a whole fresh bucket of paintballs, because when Jimmy told me why he thought we needed something faster, that was the best idea either of us had.

First thing we did was crank up the pressure on that little paintball gun just as high as it would go, and loaded up a hopper full of balls, and took turns shooting them at different angles.  We found that if we shot them at about a right-angle to the line between us and what Jimmy was now calling the G Spot, on account of it was a total mystery and it took him years to find it, they arced a little on the way in, but they still disappeared all the same.  I think he was hoping they'd circle around a couple times first, like turds in a toilet, but whatever was pulling them in was just too much stronger than Frank's boy's paintball gun.  That made us start thinking about how we could shoot them faster, but real bullets are too hard to see, and we didn't figure anything else would get anything moving faster than that paintball gun, except maybe a potato gun, and we was too excited to bother going to build one just yet.

It took both of us together almost an hour, but we got Hartnell's winch out to the very edge of the clearing and tied it to the biggest tree we could find, and got one of Jimmy's tow straps to make a loop we could tie to the hook at the end of the cable.  Then we both hemmed and hawed and tried to act busy with little details like knots and our shoes before we finally got around to who was going to go first.  "You found it, it's on your land, so if you want to go..." I started, and then Jimmy waves his hands and says no, that's ok, it's no big deal to him if I want to go take a closer look, and I admit, I wasn't too crazy about the idea, but I could tell Jimmy was even less excited, now that the moment was here, so I stepped into the loop, and Jimmy manned the winch.

I was maybe ten yards past where we had stood when Jimmy threw the bottle and I cast the line when I could really start to feel it all over.  My arms felt really heavy, but they weren't pointing at the ground so much as the ground a few feet in front of me.  My head was pounding like I'd been hanging upside down for a couple hours, and the tow strap was cutting into my gut pretty bad.  Jimmy yelled at me that I was about out of cable, and it sounded like he was talking real slow, and in the ocean, and that's when I realized blood was rushing in my ears, and my eyes felt like they was gonna pop right outta my head.  I tried to give Jimmy the high sign to pull me back in, but my arms were so heavy I could barely move them.  I noticed everything was starting to look a little gray, and I wondered if maybe I was gonna black out when that strap tugged at my middle again, and I could feel Jimmy pulling me back.

The weird thing was, by the time I was all the way back to the winch, I was feeling a little better, but things were still a little gray, and that's when Jimmy asked me what took me so long out there.  "What the hell you mean, Jimmy?  I walked out, I walked back, and thanks for helping me, but trust me, that field is no place to dawdle.  I got out just as quick as I could!"  And he says, "It's half-past seven.  You been out there over an hour and a half."  And that's when I realized it wasn't my vision going dark, it was the sky.  "Jimmy," I said, "what the hell is in this field?"

I had an idea about how to find out, but the next day was Sunday, and the library was closed, so we spent most of the day sitting at the edge of the field, drinking beers and throwing the bottles into the sky, then watching them disappear into Jimmy's G Spot, which got a lot more fun to say the more beers we had.  Monday morning I rushed through everything at work, watching the clock the whole time, until my lunch break came, and I tore into the library like I was on fire.  I asked them all manner of questions, and was late getting back to work, but when I saw Jimmy that night, I had some new ideas.

"There's this place called Tunguska," I told him, and he said that was a funny name for a place, and I said, "so's Jimmy's G Spot," and he allowed that was right, and asked me what about Tunguska?  "A long time ago, something happened there that nobody's ever been able to explain.  A whole mess of trees were knocked down, and it kinds looked like a bomb went off, but nothing was burnt."  He nodded, already seeing some similarity.  "But some people think it was something called a microsingularity, passing through the Earth."  I wasn't too good with that word at first, but I'd practiced saying it all afternoon, so it'd sound better when I told Jimmy about it, and I think the effort was worthwhile. It rolls off your tongue, or right through your Tunguska, if you prefer.

"What the hell's that?" he asked, which is exactly what I'd wanted him to ask, and pretty much what I'd asked the librarian who'd been helping me over my lunch break.

"You ever heard of a black hole?"

"Isn't that one of them bars out by the interstate?"

"Yeah, I think it might be, but this one's different.  It's these things out in space that have so much gravity, that they pull in everything around them, even light, and that's why they call them black holes."

"How do they go and pull in light?"

I waved at him, like he was being silly and I didn't have the time to explain it, but the truth is, I wasn't real clear on that part myself.  "Don't worry about that.  They just do, ok?"  I kept going, so he wouldn't get a chance to ask me something else I didn't know yet.  "And the other name for a black hole is a singularity.  So the thing that went through Tunguska was a little bitty baby one."

"So they got a G Spot there, too?"

"No, see, people think it just passed through the planet on its way somewheres else, and Tunguska is where it went through.  It didn't stick around to make trees and beer bottles disappear."

"Then why we talking about Tunguska, if they don't have a spot that make their beer bottles disappear?"

"Because I got to thinking, what if the microsingularity didn't just pass on by, but stuck around for a while?  What then?"  I was pretty proud of that word by now, and very pleased I'd gotten another chance to use it.  Jimmy nodded, and I could see he was getting it now, too.

"Then you'd have a spot that made trees and beer bottles disappear."

"Yeah, you would."

"Whatchoo think we oughta do now?" he asked.

"I tell you one thing for sure, buddy--I ain't never paying the trashman again."

I had an idea a few years ago for a story about two boys whose grandfather discovered a black hole in the back yard, because I thought a neat Grandpa Trick would be making things disappear by tossing them into the black hole behind the shed.  It was only on the night I sat down to finally write it, with a yokel and his drunken friend replacing the boys and their grandpa, that I realized it was probably inspired somehow by a book I read as a kid called Singularity, except those boys were at the other end of a black hole, and trash from some alien race kept showing up in their shed.  Oops.  Apologies to William Sleator.